Reflecting on Sian's feedback of 25 October abstract

For some reason I've wandered through today thinking it was the 25th. It's not. It's the 26th. But I can't change that. What I can do is spend some time reflecting on the valuable feedback provided by Sian earlier this afternoon (that's the 26th) on my draft abstract. Sian's comments are indented.

"This looks like a very good topic James. I like the cross-disciplinary aspect very much: my only concern would be that focussing on online programmes is going to limit the extent to which you're able to engage across disciplines, because multimodal assignments are still a 
relatively niche activity. I think you could afford to do this across online and offline modes, and then it would hopefully widen the field a little across the Colleges, in terms of identifying who is doing this kind of teaching/assessment. It would also perhaps allow you to pull in data from disciplines in ECA where 'crits' are standard."

Yes, I agree with the point about not restricting it to online programmes. In fact as I read over the abstract before sending it off, I did ask whether limit the scope to online learning might leave me short in terms of potential interviewees and cases to observe. I like the idea of being able to speak to people from different disciplines, not least as what might be regarded as an alternative format assignment in some disciplines would be the norm in the likes of art and design and not alternative at all, in fact.

"I'm guessing your focus would be on teacher interviews (rather than student), alongside observation and visual 'reading' of assignments?"

Yes. I want to limit the scope to focus on teacher interviews (to the exclusion of student interviews) so that the project would be manageable. Having studied the assessment criteria in the Dissertation Handbook, I want to aim for critical depth and to avoid being overwhelmed by the breadth of the undertaking. And yes also to the observation plan as I think it would help me gain insights and understanding that might not be achieved during interviews. Finally, the visual reading was at Sian's suggestion that it would make for an interesting exercise and one that I would be good at. This feels risky but interesting at the same time.

"The main risk perhaps would be that people are sensitive about their assessment proceedures and so may be reluctant to expose too much. This is potentially quite a big concern. One option might be to focus on the MSc in E-learning and use that as an exploratory study - I know there is quite a bit of variation in practice across the teaching team here, making an evaluative interrogation of practice useful to us, and also providing a way in to a field where we know there is a lot of interesting data in the form of student work (much of it already accessible on the open web)."

I like the idea of focusing on the MSc team, if that isn't overly narrow. Pragmatically, that would seemingly be more straightforward than having to gain the confidence of tutors with whom I haven't worked. How would that work in terms of cross-disciplinary though? Would I perhaps do interviews within the MSc in E-L team but observation across a broader range of subject areas? Would tutors be more willing to participate if they felt the focus was on observation rather than interview?

"The downside is that it's a single programme/discipline and may be over-familiar to you. Having said that, a manageable, small-scale project like this would do some good groundwork for a PhD proposal which took the wider, cross-disciplinary view."

Again, I'm attracted to the idea of working on a small scale, hopefully enabling me to really get under the skin of the subject. And yes, it would be great if this laid down some foundations for a Phd taking a more multidisciplinary approach. I'm just wondering though whether by focusing on the MSc team I'm limiting my project too much? Is it OK to be this narrow in focus (i.e. one programme of (albeit varied) study)? 

In terms of over familiarity with the MSc programme, is this in the sense that it might reduce my effectiveness or impartiality as a researcher? 

So, lots to ponder this weekend. On Sunday evening I'll revisit what I've written here and will send e-mail Sian with a response. Sunday will be the 28th.